I saw another inch-wide spot where the ice seemed thinner. I poked it with the Leatherman. The blade punched through the last bit of glaze.
And plunged all the way in, into a hole.
I stood there, breathing fast. I shone the flashlight beam into the hole. The cold in my chest grew warmer. It dropped into my belly. My breathing came sharper. I saw something in that hole.
I reached in and withdrew a small plastic box, maybe four inches long. Metal was a bad idea down here. Touch metal with skin, the skin would adhere, rip off, and frostbite would set in. So he’d used plastic.
I opened the case with bare fingers and saw, nestled in velvet inside, plastic vials. Sample vials!
The light changed from above, went shadowy, probably from clouds, the Arctic gray veil.
I closed the box and put it into my parka pocket. I climbed down and moved the ladder so that its upper tip now protruded, once again, out the open trapdoor.
You did it, Jens. You infected people intentionally. The Harmons. The people in town. You faked an outbreak.
I’d take the vial to the general. I was extra aware, going up the ladder, that what I carried in my pocket was deadly. I took each rung slowly, feeling the rungs dip from my weight. I concentrated on the vial, and the rickety ladder. If it broke, if I fell, so could the vial.
I was so aware of the vial that, poking my head out, I was only vaguely conscious that a figure stood nine or ten feet away, and when I looked up, I saw the muzzle of the rifle.
He didn’t say anything. He just fired. I was already pushing off, into the air, but I was too late.
Two shots hit me.
I was falling. The trapdoor was a far-off geometry. Miles away, whole universes away, was gray Arctic light.
TWENTY
The ballistics vest took the two impacts, both over my sternum, bull’s-eyes, normally guaranteed death shots. I’d pushed backward as he fired. I was flying away from that opening, falling in a kind of slow motion, splinters flying off the door above as he fired, automatic weapon, and when I smashed into hard earth below it was unclear which pain was worse, the concrete feel on my back, or the sensation of having been hit with sledgehammers in front.
My shoulders had taken most of the blow.
I couldn’t breathe for a moment. My vision returned. I’d struck the earth with the top of my spine, and shoulders, and then my skull had rocketed back and slammed into the ground. The parka had provided a minimal cushion. It was like an airbag had gone off inside my brain. The earth burst up in splinters around me. He was firing diagonally through the trapdoor, as he moved toward it. He didn’t see me yet. He was spraying. I’d thrown myself out of his line of sight; now he needed to look down to see me.
Did the vial in my pocket break? Are the germs out?
The pain was a freight train in my ears; a jackhammer. I felt a cracking sensation in my chest when I breathed. The three-fingered mitten was inside the Beretta’s trigger guard. I saw my arm go up, swiveling toward that square of light. The pistol bucked, crackcrackcrack, as if firing by itself, firing from twenty years of Marine survival instinct.
I pushed backward. My back was an anvil and a hammer slammed down on it. I was dizzy. My fifteen rounds were exhausted. As I groped for a second clip I saw that my only advantage was that while his rifle was silenced, my Beretta was not, my firing would be magnified down here. My shots might be audible in the neighborhood. If so, they’d bring onlookers. They’d attract attention. They’d lure soldiers if any were near, or if someone phoned them. Someone is shooting a gun down the block!
Jens would know that he could not stay here long.
The door swung shut above me, with a heavy boom, plunging me into darkness. I heard a lock snap. It made my breathing louder, safe for a moment, but each exhalation ground glass into my lungs. I tried to stand but a wave of dizziness knocked me back to the ground.
I took a quick measure. The back seems bruised but the head injury will be the worry. I hit hard, so my brain would have smashed into my skull, front and back. Potential subdural hematoma. Potential expanding damage. Potential blood leakage. THINK ABOUT IT LATER!
He’s getting away.
I groped two steps toward the ladder, bent like an old man, stopped, and threw up. I groped for the flashlight. It had broken in the fall. In the dark I brought out fresh ammo. I thanked the Lord, the U.S. Marines, and a long-ago tight-assed drill sergeant named Dave Gaffney for making me load guns blindfolded at Parris Island, during training.
My breathing sounded like ripping fabric. As I touched the ladder, I heard, up top, slightly muffled by the door, the unmistakable revving of a four-cylinder snowmobile. That would be Jens, I guessed.
I envisioned him heading for the ocean, disappearing into the flood of people escaping from town, over the ice.
In the dark, struggling up each rung felt like dragging a boulder up Mt. Everest. My breathing sounded like an emphysema patient’s. I tasted sweet, cloying blood. Inside my back writhed a jumble of snakes. Was the total darkness natural? Or had I suffered some vision loss, too?
The revving sound up top grew smooth and dissipated. I envisioned a snowmobile heading off. My head hit the door. I’d reached the surface. Hooking my left arm around the top rung, I reached with the right and pushed, but the trapdoor would not move enough to let in even a sliver of light.
I banged on the door. Each impact sent waves of pain through my arm, into my chest. I tried yelling for help. My voice sounded frail to me, like some other, damaged man’s voice. The blood in my mouth inexplicably tasted of apples, and a wave of dizziness threatened to topple me back into the dark, but the arm around the rung kept me in place.
Gotta get him.
I reversed the Beretta and used it as a hammer. I banged on the hatch. My voice sounded like a whisper to me. Maybe it was not even coming out at all.
Then I heard a scraping noise, inches away, and an odd clicking, as if an animal, a woodpecker, tapped against the thick wooden door. A beak. Paws with nails. I heard a snort.
“Is someone there?”
The response was only muffled, jagged breathing, heavy, sounding like an animal’s.
“Waggy? Winfred? Winger?”
No, not the dog, because now I heard the lock scraping. I heard the metal padlock being moved. Was the dog nosing the thing? Or was a person lifting it.
“Who’s up there? Michelle? Is that you?”
The scraping stopped. I called out and got no answer. I couldn’t believe that no one had heard all the shooting. Or maybe a neighbor had heard it, but was too scared to come over, or had decided to not involve himself, or was using the anarchy out there to mount up on a snowmobile with a good GPS system and drive off, exiting the town.
Trapped.
No, not trapped. Someone was unlocking the door.
The scratching sounds stopped. But the door didn’t open. Heart pounding, I reached up and pushed and this time the door moved. I pushed harder and it swung up and fell over, open, made a thunking noise as weak light flooded in. I saw through a blurred film — my vision — the mass of bruised Arctic sky.
Was he still here? Had he opened the door? Were the revving snowmobile sounds a trick, as in, Poke your head up so I can fire?
I called out, “Jens!”
No answer.